When the Biden administration abandoned Afghanistan last year, they didn’t just leave behind Americans and a strategic air base hundreds of miles away from the Chinese border. They also essentially put up a “free minerals” sign for an estimated $1 trillion to $3 trillion worth of lithium, copper, and other rare earth minerals buried below Afghanistan’s surface.
It was an unprecedented giveaway to China in its new Cold War with the United States.
The administration had full knowledge of the treasure trove of minerals in Afghanistan. I helped commission the geological survey while working in the Pentagon back in 2006 that discovered those minerals. And as the U.S. was still grappling with chaotic evacuation efforts in Afghanistan, the Chinese Communist Party wasted no time in quickly dispatching Chinese mining representatives to Kabul to meet with Taliban representatives in November 2021. With a near-monopoly over the rare earth mineral market, China saw an opportunity to not only increase its economic footprint but cash in on the West’s policy shift toward a green economy that will be powered by these very minerals.
With nearly $300 billion in green subsidies now allocated through the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. will be forced to spend these funds on Chinese manufactured minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries and other systems. Not only are we giving up strategic mining sites to Chinese interests, but we’re now paying them to fund our own economic demise. When you look below the surface, there are a number of other alarm bells.
China’s dominance over the antimony mineral market should scare every American, especially those who are proponents of a strong military and the Second Amendment. Antimony is the primary element needed to produce ammunition, optics, military communication equipment, nuclear weapons, and much more. Incredibly, China and Russia control 80% of this market. So while the Biden administration correctly lists China and Russia as the most insidious threats facing the U.S.-led world order, it has done little to reduce our dependence on those same adversaries for our military to be able to function. We must also look at what’s transpiring in our own hemisphere in ceding this market to China. While you might see Democrat politicians in Nevada celebrating new mining operations by the company Lithium Americas in their state, you should also know that Chinese mineral company Ganfeng holds the largest minority share in the company.
Ganfeng President Li Liangbin serves on various CCP committees, as do other company executives. We should be under no illusion whom they answer to. Their company could be eligible for billions in subsidies through the Inflation Reduction Act. Additionally, I raised concerns last year over the sale of a Canadian-owned Neo Lithium Corp. mine in Argentina to Chinese Zijin Mining Group Ltd. The 2020 Canada-U.S. Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals requires such sales to be flagged for the U.S. But I have not heard anything from the Biden administration on if they were even consulted by Canada on the sale.
To offset these alarming developments, we need serious policy shifts. The U.S. needs to expand its critical mineral strategic stockpiles to ensure our military has adequate reserves, including of minerals like antimony, should we be brought into military conflict that would likely involve the CCP choking supply chains as part of their strategy. That’s why I included an amendment to the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that requires the National Defense Stockpile to manage rare earth elements and critical minerals to sustain three years of major conflict.
The Biden administration also needs to call out our allies and partners when they make strategic blunders like approving sales of mines to Chinese companies. This not only hurts their national security but puts us at risk as well. Western Europe refused to heed warnings from the Trump administration that it was becoming too reliant on Russian gas, and they now face a very cold winter ahead with skyrocketing energy prices as a consequence of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
We should have the same resolve as it pertains to critical mineral shortages that could come with a conflict with China over Taiwan. With the Left’s pipe dream of a new green economy looking more likely — this crisis on the horizon has exposed our energy dependence yet again. Shifting completely away from fossil fuels is not just bad policy but dangerous. It will trade one form of dependency for another. It’s time for the world to realize our dependence on rare earth minerals isn’t sustainable unless we make drastic changes.
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Michael Waltz represents Florida’s 6th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a member of the Armed Services Committee, a Green Beret veteran of the war on terror in Afghanistan, a former White House counterterrorism policy adviser, and author of the book Warrior Diplomat: a Green Beret’s Battles from Washington to Afghanistan.
